What power shift?
Much of the talk before this game kicked off was centred on how tottenham were now the rulers of North London, but a powerhouse Arsenal performance served a reminder to our neighbours that one season of finishing above us after 21 of being in our shadow doesn’t constitute a shift in power.
Our side were far superior to spurs in every position during the 90, and Pochettino lost his first derby in the process. Wenger went for Lacazette to start alongside Alexis and Ozil in a front three and this attacking trio was key in how we put spurs to the sword. The attacking three were full of intent and running, tracking back and pressing and some really lovely touches.
It was our midfield that really had a point to prove though, and they gave everything to the cause. Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka left it all on the pitch and strangled the life out of their spurs counterparts, Dembele and Sissokho. At both ends of the pitch, our engine room were on the pulse.
Shkodran Mustafi passed a recent fitness test to earn a recall to the side, and the German repelled everything spurs could muster, which wasn’t much. From the opening exchanges, we bossed every area of the pitch and Petr Cech was pretty much untroubled aside from a squirming Eriksen low shot that struck the outside of the near post.
This game didn’t feel like one of those games where we have untold amounts of possession and chances, only to flounder. It was our intensity that was troubling spurs, and they couldn’t keep up.
The deadlock was broken on the 36th minute. Alexis was found, being marked tightly by Davidson Sanchez. The Chilean headed past the spurs man and the defender put his arm across Alexis before having a slight tug of his Arsenal jersey. Mike Dean, rather surprisingly, gave us the decision and from the resulting set-piece, a perfect delivery from Mesut Ozil was met by Mustafi, who jumped higher than anyone to float a wonderful header past Lloris.
We didn’t have to wait long for the second and for our dominance to come to fruition. Alexandre Lacazette was actually given the ball in the channel with space to run into for once, and the Frenchman ate up the yards before finding Alexis with a low square pass. Alexis had plenty to do, but a great first touch allowed him to squeeze a high shot into the net and give Lloris no chance.
Half time came and went and although spurs were afforded more possession, the script was very much the same. Cech was still just as untroubled, we still had our boot firmly on spurs’ neck. Subs came and went around the 60-70th minute, but it changed nothing. No matter what Pochettino tried, our men on the field had the answers.
It was so refreshing to see us reach what is near our capabilities. So often we are bested thanks to our own inefficiencies, but not this time. For the whole game, we were at it all over the pitch. All of our players were on form and wanted this win – if we had failed to win this then a big gap would have been the result, even at this early stage of the season.
We weren’t finished either. Alexis could have grabbed another, and Alex Iwobi shot wide from a good position, sandwiching an Eric Dier header that produced a fingertip save from Cech – and that was the nearest that spurs were to come to registering a goal.
With this sort of display, frustration as well as joy can spring forth. Why can’t we do this more often? If we could do this for even 20 out of the 38 games, then we would be unstoppable. If we think like this though, we will never enjoy any moment. We know what we can do, all we can do though, is hope.
Spurs were bested, we pressed better than they did, we attacked quicker, we defended stouter. Their fans needed a reminder of where they actually stand in football after getting ahead of themselves recently.
We also needed a reminder. We needed to see our team show that not only can we produce displays of this nature still, but we can still want it more than our opponents.
Well played Arsenal – this was so good to see. #UTA
As you lot have been saying since 2014, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
1. We are still ahead of you and you’re away at Burnley next.
2. We have an important midweek game, where are you playing ………….?
3. Ozil will play his usual way next game, and Sanchez will be off soon.
4. Look at the age of your squad, and look at ours.
5. With all the money you’ve got, all you buy is MOR cloggers!
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Fair points, but how long will your youthful squad remain at a club where they pay under the odds & don’t win anything? With your stadium seriously over budget, it’s this season or bust for you. Kane, Ali, Eriksen – win something or they’ll be off to triple their wages.
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Still clinging to the hope that the new stadium will be dropping?
Half the money for the new stadium has already been paid. It was covered by club revenues without incurring any debt. It is so funny the way other clubs’ fans go on about Levy and money but then simplistically accept that a consummate business man, with over a decade of planning, is going to be like a wino wandering around trying to tap up enough for a bottle 😂😂😂
Spurs don’t underpay their players. It’s another of those simplistic agenda-driven media myths. Spurs, like ArseAnal, pay the sensible percentage of club revenues in wages, as recommended by UEFA. As revenues go up wages go up. Revenues will be going up when the new stadium is online. It is somewhat ironic that anyone to do with ArseAnal should jump on this bandwagon. Liverpool pay a disproportionate percentage of revenues as wages. Chelsea and City pay obscene wages with money they haven’t earned. Spurs and ArseAnal follow the recommended sustainable model – and both suffer to a certain extent because of that. Doesn’t make much sense an ArseAnal fan gloating over it – not when you will be losing your best two players for nothing because you don’t pay City level wages.
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You pay Kane and Ali far below what they could get elsewhere, and you have gone way over budget to ensure deadlines for next seasons new stadium is met. Any massive spend like stadium needs austerity measures, and spurs are no different. You can deny it all you like, but the benefits of your new home won’t be felt for a while. In that interim period, you need to somehow keep your best players and kick on to the next level. You’re on the cusp of either success or failure, and this season demands silverware.
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Plus, cloggers? You didn’t get near us! Your attacking threat was non-existent! With our worst seasons, we still won something, your best ever PL side have achieved nothing bar putting pressure on.
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Yeah.
Kane was visibly injured – ironic really when the ArseAnal fans made such a song and dance about him being declared fit after missing the friendlies. Even more so because they didn’t seem to understand that no-one at Spurs pulled Kane out, the England medical staff sent him home. True, also, Dele and Eriksen had just about their worst games combined in a Spurs shirt.
And so we return to the old chestnut about you winning things in your worst seasons and that somehow trumping Spurs finishing second and clear and away above you – y’know that thing you have given a pathetic name to and made a song and dance about. Let’s clear this up, shall we. The last time Spurs won a trophy ArseAnal didn’t. Spurs finished outside the top four and below ArseAnal, who finished in the top four. Did the ArseAnal fans say it was a fair cop and Spurs had had a better season? Or did they hysterically (in the worst and most demeaning sense of the word) celebrate their pathetic and totally reinvented St Totteringham’s Day? If the answer is the former, then fair enough. But if the answer is the latter it just shows what a pathetic bunch of hypocritical goal-post moving school bullies you are, that you can’t stand for the shoe to be on someone else’s foot!
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Jeez man, calm down. It’s more the fact that after one season in 22 years, your fans claim to have the bigger and better team? Aside from that, it’s fair game.
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Their two best players will still leave for nothing.
How pathetic that the author has to maintain the fiction that there was any kind of guy by Sanchez on Sanchez! There was zero tug! None at all! The TV cameras showed that immediately. Fans just like their manager – whinge and whine about not getting a decision ten minutes before the opposition score a goal rather than give some credit or accept some blame; at the same time barefaced lies rather than just admit they got the rub of poor officiating. All ArseAnal fans everywhere: the whole world could see that there was literally no tug whatsoever. Trying to maintain that there was even a minimal tug, like the author of this article is pathetically sad!
When is the next installment of their civil war? My guess would be within three weeks 😂😂😂
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We’ve been victims of bad decisions, like all teams. It evens out. I mean, I can recall any of our players being booked for diving like Ali has the last season and a half. Look, we can bicker about decisions for days, but the result was pretty conclusive.
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@Jokman AFC – seen as I can’t reply to your replies:
Yes, all teams get a mix of good and bad decisions – debateable whether they even out, but that’s a different matter. But that wasn’t the point at hand. The point at hand is that the author of the article claimed there was a “slight tug of the shirt”. There wasn’t…not even a tiny little bit. It was the perfect tackle. For an ArseAnal fan a day latter not being able to just admit it was an absolute stinker of a decision is pathetic. It was an awful decision and for Mike Dean to indicate that he literally saw something that never happened, by pulling at his own shirt, should be looked at.
In fact his whole recent performances (in the plural) refereeing Spurs games should be looked at. The build up was all about ArseAnal fans claiming he had a pro-Spurs, anti-ArseAnal bias. They didn’t notice that against Swansea he point blank refused to even consider any of the three pretty good to very good penalty appeals Spurs had – like he was on a one man mission to prove he didn’t favour Spurs. Yesterday, right from the off it looked like he was determined not to be seen getting decisions wrong if they could be interpreted as anti-ArseAnal biased. The Sanchez free-kick was an absolute farce. I won’t complain about the goals, even though they were offside, because they were the type of offsides that are easier to see with freeze-frame than with the naked eye. But he was incredibly lenient with Xhaka. He let him off with a lengthy talking to for a clear mandatory yellow. He then hooked him, rightly. Then in the second half he clearly pulled back a Spurs player but Dean again let him off. My opinion, and I don’t like to sound conspiracy-theorist, is that Mike Dean has let the claims that he is a Spurs fan get to him, and he appears to be overcompensating.
As for the stadium, time will tell which of us is right. I have seen a lot of in depth analysis (that I won’t attempt to regurgitate here), which is why I am not concerned. You are welcome to believe as you wish. I suspect that your hopes will not come to fruition 👍
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As do I! The free kick may have been harsh, but his arm was across him and they’re given regularly. The reason may be wrong, but it still had grounds for a set piece. In terms of Mike Dean, have you seen the win ratio in terms of him officiating Arsenal games? Its scary how low it is. There was a conspiracy theory on solid foundations, I still believe he dislikes our side thanks to his history with us.
This season both of our teams are closer than ever, even if I have to admit yours works better as a team on a consistent basis. We will see come May if the promise your team has actually comes to fruition.
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It absolutely was not grounds for a set piece! It is obfuscation in the extreme to claim so. Virtually every challenge be ever would be penalised. If you have ever seen one of those given you have been watching a misapplication of the rules!
I have seen the table concerning Mike Dean and ArseAnal games/win ratios. No matter how bad it looks he shouldn’t be overcompensating negatively against Spurs. And it certainly looks like he is. Do you construct similar tables for the referees who give a disproportionate amount of dodgy decisions in your favour? Wenger’s habit of only seeing what at he wants to see is probably his worst trait. ArseAnal fans don’t need to mimic him!
I agree that the two clubs are as close as they have been since Mr Scholar nearly bankrupted Tottenham. It has been much closer for the last decade, really, though – a lot of the credit for that lies at Mr Levy’s door. Can’t help feeling that ArseAnal fans have deceived themselves a bit on this by reinventing the whole Story Totteringham’s Day nonsense just so they could keep hysterically celebrating it.
I used to think the furious drive to get Wenger gone was incredibly misguided and disrespectful. Most Spurs fans still think the entitlement of ArseAnal’s fans dismissing three FA Cups is a bit sad. But I have to say a couple of seasons ago I began to see what the problem is. It’s like gloriously talented goalscoring playmakers is all that matters to him. Is the defence an add-on extra? Every season for a decade (and the time span is not arbitrary) you’ve a percentage of games where you lose and then he complains about the English game being over physical and lack of protection. No! He’s been here long enough. He should know that he has to build a team to cope with that, you build from defence. It is his responsibility to do so! You should have been looking at Davidson Sanchez. We got Alderweireld at a snip – you didn’t even make a serious challenge for him. Vertonghen chose us over you because Wenger wanted to play him in midfield. Can’t help feeling giving him a two year contract is just delaying the inevitable. Your main advantage over us now is still financial. But boardroom division and a dead man walking manager with a goalscoring playmaker fixation are diluting it. Liverpool still have a financial advantage over us but we have finished above them in seven of the last eight seasons. I can’t help feeling that this is just another one of those big game wins where Wenger gets you up for it, in the face of a huge amount of public criticism, and then looks inordinately smug and self-satisfied, only to tamely lose a game in a couple of weeks and the whole Wenger hoky-coky civil war starts up again. Just my feeling, some Spurs fans think it will kick start your season and you will finish above us. We’ll see – delicate bunch, some of my co-supporters 🤔
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I’m not saying that the set play deserves to be given, just that the PL officiating has changed and that they are now given. Plus, how many managers actually stand up and admit that a goal shouldn’t have happened when it runs in their favour? It doesn’t happen often. Wenger simply papered over it, perhaps with the awful calls Vs City and Stoke fresh in his mind? Point is, we all get bad and good decisions, human fallibility means it happens. Mike dean is a terrible ref and when stats show a vastly unfavourable ratio, it is hard to look elsewhere other than bias. We all know AW’s failings, he neglects defensive duties, always has done.
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P.S. what you won’t find any sensible Spurs fan saying is that the ArseAnal players didn’t look like they “wanted it more”. Because they certainly did. And despite Mike Dean’s performance and our apparent injury problems that certainly hurt! One of the pundits, Graham Sounded maybe, pointed out – with an incredulous tone – only one Spurs player was booked! It was poor.
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We were all surprised too – esp with Dembele. We all rate him pretty highly but he was overrun.
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Sad to say, think his day is done at the top. He has had recurrent injuries for years now and his playing time is being very carefully managed.
Wanyama being injured and Dier having to drop back to cover for Alderweireld at the same time has left us lacking a certain bite in midfield. Dembele really needs one of them to play alongside. Sissoko us much improved but still couldn’t control a ball if you put it in a Concentration Camp and made him the commandant! Winks should probably have started- but he is (genuinely) recovering from a knock too.
Kane not being one hundred percent meant he wasn’t leading the line like he normally would. I have made a lot of excuses for Llorente – he was injured when he joined, didn’t by age a preseason, etc. But yesterday was a day when we needed a genuine alternative to Kane to start (and maybe bring Kane on late, if needed). Llorente clearly isn’t trusted to be that man. He needs to be…and soon!
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I think they’re all good points. Strong squad though, more than most. Really impressed with Winks so far, but early days.
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The issue Spurs fans have with Mike Dean is that so much focus has been on his performances officiating ArseAnal games, with the suggestion that he is a Spurs fan, that he seems to be overcompensating when put in charge of one of our games by making sure it doesn’t seem like he is favouring us.
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